15 August 2018

Brotherly Lovers are responsible for a garage track called "Was A Lie" which has been talked about enthusiastically online for awhile now. Rough and imperfect, it sounds as if was recorded for a few cents, and even they were probably fed into the electricity meter just to keep the session going. Like so much of its ilk, though, it possesses a charm that some contemporary hits of the time lacked.

Far less has been written about its follow-up "If You Need A Love Song", despite - or perhaps because of - the fact that this seems to be the release where Brotherly Lovers had smoothed off some of the rough edges. Sounding less buzzsaw and agitated in approach and more akin to an aspiring folk-rock group, it showcases gentle vocal harmonies and a slightly melancholy but jingle-jangle melody. Still, though, there's a brittleness and punkish naiveté to the delivery which clearly indicates that this is still a low-budget affair, like a DIY eighties indie take on The Byrds as opposed to the polished Columbia Records deal.

Hailing from Queens in New York, Brotherly Lovers released "What A Lie" in 1966 and also acted as Lesley Gore's backing band for her West Coast tour at around the same time. Consisting of singer, guitarist and sometime actor George Grant, lead guitarist Mike Ginex, bassist Ray Stankes, and Richie Lexton on drums, the group toured with Gore for a large portion of the year and even appeared on an episode of "Shindig" with her, but none of it ultimately led to a significant increase in record sales. They were also apparently among the many unlucky people who auditioned to become "The Monkees", meaning that in an alternative universe somewhere this group recorded "I'm A Believer".

George Grant later went on to become a producer and writer of TV and radio jingles - the whereabouts of the rest is less clear. If you know anything more, please leave a comment or drop me a line.

Meanwhile, the New York label Eskee was a very short-lived affair indeed, seemingly managing to conduct business for just under a year before giving up, but during its lifespan it did at least launch The Jelly Beans record "You Don't Mean Me No Good" into the world, which later became a much-loved Northern Soul spin.

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"Left and to the Back" is a blog exploring the dark and dusty world of flop singles and albums, the kind you may find lingering near the stock room of your local second hand record store (if you still have one), or perhaps going for extortionate sums on ebay.

For a better idea about the kind of music featured, both sublime and ridiculous, please go to our Spotify playlist here. Please note that L&TTB is not primarily a sixties blog, even though a lot of good "lost" material was released around this era and will be featured. In short, if I like it and it's interesting, I'll upload it. And sometimes if I don't like it but it's interesting, it will also feature.

The music uploaded to this site is for evaluation only, and where it is otherwise available at a reasonable price I would persuade you to support your local second hand record store by buying it. Many of the posts on here are about digging around in these shops and being thrilled by ridiculous and obscure finds, and I hope I'm persuading a few more readers to get out there and dig around. So please do dig. Man. No blog or download site can ever be an effective substitute.